Rule 56.Summary Judgments

Rule 56(a) lets a party claiming relief move for summary judgment, with or without supporting declarations, once 21 days have passed since the action began, or as soon as the opposing party serves its own summary judgment motion. Rule 56(b) gives the defending party an easier path — it may move for summary judgment at any time. Either motion can address the whole claim or just part of it.

Rule 56(c) sets the schedule and format that make the motion a heavy filing: the motion and its supporting documents must be filed at least 90 days before trial and 45 days before the hearing set on it, unless the court orders otherwise, giving the opposing party 30 days after service of the brief to answer and the moving party 14 days after that to reply. A principal or answer brief can't exceed 38 pages, a reply brief can't exceed 12, footnotes count toward the limit, and the text must run in 12-point type or larger, double-spaced except for indented, single-spaced quotations. A party who needs more room can file a short application — no more than two pages, submitted at least seven days before the brief is due — and ask the court to enlarge the limits for good cause. Judgment is warranted when the pleadings, discovery and disclosure materials, and any declarations show no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law — and the rule allows judgment to go against the party who filed the motion, if that's what the record supports.

When summary judgment doesn't dispose of the whole case, Rule 56(d) has the court pin down which material facts aren't in dispute, examining the pleadings and evidence and questioning the attorneys as needed, and issue an order treating those facts as established going forward. The court can even enter an interlocutory judgment on liability alone while a genuine dispute over the amount of damages remains open. Rule 56(e) requires supporting or opposing declarations to rest on personal knowledge, set out facts that would be admissible at trial, and show the declarant is competent to testify to them, with sworn or certified copies attached for any document referenced. Once a motion is properly made and supported, the opposing party can't rest on the allegations or denials in its own pleading — the rule's own note points to case law requiring a party to point the court to the specific page and line of the record containing the evidence that raises a genuine factual dispute. Rule 56(f) gives the court options — denying the motion, ordering a continuance for more discovery, or another just order — when the opposing party shows by declaration that it can't yet marshal the facts it needs. And Rule 56(g) makes clear that a declaration filed in bad faith or purely to cause delay triggers a mandatory award of the other side's reasonable expenses, including attorney's fees, and can expose the offending party or attorney to contempt.